![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
heard of them?
Oct. 22nd, 2008 09:01 amA common remark made about both Obama and Palin is that they're little-known; people don't know much about them. This is silly; if you care, there's plenty about both. Obama has been the subject of intense media attention for at least the year-and-a-half he's been running, and they're trying to catch up with Palin: the revelations keep coming.
But it does raise the question: when did you first hear of them?
I know exactly when I first read the name Barack Obama: in a news article surveying the Illinois Democratic senatorial field before the March 2004 primary. It said that rather surprisingly, for he'd not been initially tipped to have much of a chance, he was poised to win the primary. That gave him a good chance to be that unusual thing, a black US Senator. After he won the primary, his Republican opponent imploded in June (remember the sex club scandal?), so by the time he gave his keynote speech at the Democratic convention, to call him "the next Senator from Illinois" was not just hopeful thinking. That speech on TV was the first time I saw or heard him, and from it I learned the details of his interesting background. I figured even then that he could run for President some time. So he's been a familiar figure to me for four years.
As for Palin, I hadn't been keeping a close eye on Alaska politics, but it didn't surprise me at all when I came across the fact sometime early last year that the previous governor had been bumped off in his primary. (I'd visited Alaska a couple years earlier and he was wildly unpopular even then.) The new governor was a woman, which was interesting, and a first for Alaska; she had an unusual and memorable surname; and she had a good reputation for a Republican. But I didn't look any further than that, so though I had heard of her, I was taken as off-guard by McCain's choice as everyone else.
But it does raise the question: when did you first hear of them?
I know exactly when I first read the name Barack Obama: in a news article surveying the Illinois Democratic senatorial field before the March 2004 primary. It said that rather surprisingly, for he'd not been initially tipped to have much of a chance, he was poised to win the primary. That gave him a good chance to be that unusual thing, a black US Senator. After he won the primary, his Republican opponent imploded in June (remember the sex club scandal?), so by the time he gave his keynote speech at the Democratic convention, to call him "the next Senator from Illinois" was not just hopeful thinking. That speech on TV was the first time I saw or heard him, and from it I learned the details of his interesting background. I figured even then that he could run for President some time. So he's been a familiar figure to me for four years.
As for Palin, I hadn't been keeping a close eye on Alaska politics, but it didn't surprise me at all when I came across the fact sometime early last year that the previous governor had been bumped off in his primary. (I'd visited Alaska a couple years earlier and he was wildly unpopular even then.) The new governor was a woman, which was interesting, and a first for Alaska; she had an unusual and memorable surname; and she had a good reputation for a Republican. But I didn't look any further than that, so though I had heard of her, I was taken as off-guard by McCain's choice as everyone else.
